American Experience (1988)

Season 14: Episode 9

Recalling the "epic battle" over evolution waged in 1925 by fundamentalist titan William Jennings Bryan and freethinking Clarence Darrow. This chronicle also explores trial oddities. It was held in Dayton, Tenn., because civic boosters wanted to put the town "on the map." Then there's John Scopes, the football coach (teaching science was a side job) who volunteered to be prosecuted. The offending book he used was Tennessee's "official" science text. Moreover, as he wrote in his memoirs, he didn't recall ever actually teaching evolution.